After 12 years of my mom and me building our Wyoming points, we finally decided it was time for these two California girls to hunt mule deer and antelope in the Cowboy State. It was a nice surprise when I got the phone call at work that my mom and I had both drawn the tags we had put in for. My dad, uncles, and late grandpa had hunted this unit 12 years before us and killed a buck that we have on the wall in our living room today. My Grandpa Bob had passed away in June before our hunt, so with heavy hearts, this became a hunt of making and reliving memories for my family.
After a long 20+ hour drive, we finally arrived in Wyoming, anxious to hunt antelope while we waited for the deer season to open. My mom drew first blood in Wyoming with her first antelope ever. She made a beautiful downhill shot at 280 yards. I had never hunted antelope before, so I was having a difficult time judging the bucks. After looking at hundreds, I finally found the antelope that we all decided was a keeper. It was so exciting walking up to my first antelope buck and realizing he was bigger than what we had originally thought. After I killed my antelope, we realized it was the day before my Grandpa Bob's birthday, so in his memory, we drove up the mountain to take a photo with my antelope where he had taken a photo with his 29" mule deer.
We were thankful to harvest two big antelope so early in the trip so we could focus on mule deer. We had passed up decent bucks and were starting to question where we were focusing because we were seeing more bighorn sheep rams and bull elk than mature bucks. A few days into our hunt, I finally spotted my mom’s buck skylined. It was hard not to get too excited when I was telling her it was a shooter. My mom once again made a perfect shot and put the biggest buck we had seen so far down. I couldn’t help but cry in excitement for her, seeing her smile and high five my dad and me. Her buck measured in at 26" with a triple eyeguard.
The pressure was on for me to finish our trip strong. Wyoming had decided to throw me a curve ball, though. What snow we had on the ground melted, and there was no weather in the near forecast. With days being warmer, the deer seemed to become harder to spot. After a few days of glassing up younger bucks, we finally saw a decent buck on the same road my mom had harvested hers on. My parents both looked back at me like I was crazy when I said, “Not big enough.” The search for my wall hanger was still on. We hiked countless hours. We were all making amazing, long spots, but we still couldn’t seem to find that trophy.
When we had first arrived to Wyoming, we received an unfortunate phone call that a friend had suddenly passed. My dad and uncles had met him in a little bar while hunting in Wyoming years previous and became close friends with him. My family would go hunting with him and visit his ranch, and his family would come and visit us on the California coast to go fishing and crabbing. We made a group decision to take a day off of hunting to attend the services since we were only a three-hour drive away.
We left early on the morning of day 12, wearing our only non-hunting clothes we brought with us. I had fallen asleep in the backseat when my dad suddenly pulled off the highway to look at a buck. When I pulled my binoculars up to my face to see just how big this buck was, my heart started racing and I was suddenly awake. I told my dad, "That’s him!" However, since we were on a time crunch to make it to Mike Jarvis’ services, we had to leave him be.
On our way back to camp after the funeral, we decided to stop and see if the buck we had spotted earlier that morning was still around. He was. He was feeding with some smaller bucks but was feeding in the only piece of private property surrounded by a walk-in area. We looked at our maps and decided to check out some of the walk-in areas and hope that he would move to huntable land before dark. We spent the next few hours looking at large groups of deer but weren’t able to make it back in time to see if I could get a shot at the buck I wanted. On our way back to camp, we decided it was time to take a gamble and move our camp a few hours away from where we had been hunting every day to hopefully give me a chance at the buck I wanted. T
The next morning, we did a quick morning hunt and then packed up camp as fast as we could so we could get an evening hunt in in our new territory. We moved our camp just in time to make the hour drive to where the buck was. When we arrived, we spotted all the smaller bucks that were with him, but we couldn’t seem to find him. We decided to keep hunting down the road in the walk-in areas to see if we could find another shooter. I am so thankful for my parents and how patient they were with me. I told them, “Not big enough,” on countless bucks. I had my heart set on one buck. We raced back to the field where we had seen the buck, and there he was again. This time, he was where I could shoot him, but by the time I was able to get a good rest, I wasn’t able to see him clearly through my scope when I zoomed it in. Once again, we had to leave without him and make the long drive back to camp empty-handed. I don’t believe I slept at all that night worrying that if I didn’t get a chance at this buck I was going to be headed back to California to make some tag soup.
The next morning was stressful knowing that it was the last morning that wasn’t going to be blowing 50 miles an hour and my parents both had to go back to work. We drove up a ridge overlooking the field we had seen him in the night before, and right off the bat, we spotted five bucks. We put the spotting scope on them. My dad and I kept going back and forth about which buck was bigger and not knowing if one of them was him. After a good 20 minutes of watching them feed and fight, he finally looked towards us and I knew that was the old warrior with the ripped ear. I army crawled up the ridge with my sandbag and gun in hand to get a good rest for a 420-yard shot. Finally, it happened. I was able to harvest my biggest buck to date. We named my buck "The Jarvis Buck." We are pretty sure he had a hand in our luck on this hunt.
I would like to give a special thanks to my parents for taking us girls hunting on family vacations and instilling the love and passion for the outdoors in our lives. I love you guys!
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